1. Field of the Invention
A certain aspect of the embodiment(s) discussed herein is related to an image forming system, apparatus, and method for forming a predetermined image on an image forming medium in response to and/or in accordance with a print request, a management apparatus configured to manage the image forming system, and a recording medium in which a program for causing a computer to execute the image forming method is recorded.
A certain aspect of the embodiment(s) discussed herein is related to a technique for the management apparatus to manage and operate an image forming function provided to a user.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional image forming systems are formed of, for examples apparatuses having software as illustrated in FIG. 1. Referring to FIG. 1, for example, application software AP for editing and creating document data or image data, a printer driver PD that generates print data such as PDL (Page Description Language) data based on a metafile from the application software AP, in which metafile a drawing procedure is defined, and a print data transmission module DSM that transmits the generated print data to a printer 2000 that is a printing destination are installed in a personal computer (PC) 1000. By causing these software components to operate together, the PC 1000 generates print data in a data format interpretable by the printer 2000 from document data or image data contained in a hard disk drive (HDD) 1109, and transmits the generated print data together with a print request and printing condition information to the printer 2000.
On the other hand, a print data parser DP that interprets print data and generates output-format data in a data format interpretable by a printer engine (not graphically illustrated) is installed in the printer 2000. By causing this software component to operate, the printer 2000 forms and prints a predetermined image on recording paper based on the print data received from the PC 1000.
In such an image forming system, it is desired that the combination of the printer driver PD installed in the PC 1000 and the print data parser DP that operates in the printer 2000 to be used be managed in a simplified manner.
For normal printing in the above-described image forming system, the printer driver PD installed in the PC 1000 generates plotter-output-format data interpretable by the print data parser DP that operates in the printer 2000 serving as a printing destination. That is, there is dependence between the print data parser DP and the printer driver PD.
Therefore, in the above-described image forming system, it is impossible to respond in a flexible and simplified manner to changes in the system environment such as an increase or decrease in the number of apparatuses including the PC 1000 and the printer 2000, a change of the operating system (OS) of the PC 1000, and the upgrading of the print data parser DP that operates in the printer 2000.
For example, the following techniques have been proposed in order to solve the above-described problem.
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2003-280842 (hereinafter, Patent Document 1) describes a printer driver updating method that compares the version of a printer driver installed in a PC and the version of the printer driver uploaded to a Web page and downloads the uploaded version of the printer driver to the PC if the installed and uploaded versions are different. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-134245 (hereinafter, Patent Document 2) describes a system for automatically installing a printer driver. The described system downloads the printer driver of a printer designated as a printing destination by a user from the database of an external apparatus, and performs automatic installation including a connection setup and a print setup. These techniques enable users to update a printer driver in a simplified manner.
Further, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2006-155288 (hereinafter, Patent Document 3) describes a server apparatus and a printer setup method in a server-based computing environment. According to the described server apparatus and printer setup method, if it is determined based on the information on a printer driver installed in a client that the printer driver is not recorded in the server apparatus, the printer driver of the client is installed in the server apparatus and correlated with the printer of the client. As a result, it is possible to manage and operate the same printer driver between the client and the server apparatus.
However, such conventional image forming systems as described in Patent Documents 1 through 3 have problems such as the following.
First, according to the image forming systems described in Patent Documents 1 and 2, a printer driver can be installed automatically in an apparatus to be used without dependence on a user's determination when the user requests printing. Further, according to the image forming system described in Patent Document 3, it is possible to automatically install the printer driver managed and operated by a management apparatus.
According to the conventional image forming system, however, the printer driver PD and the print data parser DP that are dependent on each other are managed and operated in difference apparatuses (an information processor and an image forming apparatus, respectively) as illustrated in FIG. 1.
Therefore, if there are a large number of image forming apparatuses to serve as printing destinations (that is, if there are a large number of image forming apparatuses managed and operated by the image forming system), an administrator who manages the image forming system has to manage the combination of the printer driver PD to be installed in the information processor and the print data parser DP to operate in the image forming apparatus in each apparatus for each machine type of the image forming apparatus. This complicates the administrator's work, thus preventing the system from being managed or operated efficiently.
Further, in the case where a user uses the conventional image forming system at home, even if the printer driver PD corresponding to the image forming apparatus purchased by the user is automatically installed, an error may occur at the time of the installation depending on the software environment of an apparatus that the user uses at the time of making a request for printing (print request). In this case, the user has to cope with the error. This, however, is such complicated work for the user that the user is required to have enough operational ability to correct the error that has occurred.
Further, recent advancement of information processing technologies and communications technologies has diversified apparatuses that users use to make a print request to an image forming apparatus, so that apart from the PC 1000, information terminals with good portability, such as cellular phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), are available. Therefore, unlike before, apparatuses used by users to make a print request are not limited to information processors having an environment that enables installation of a printer driver or stable operations after the installation of the printer driver, such as PCs, so that it is practically impossible for vendors to develop and provide printer drivers that support respective apparatuses used to make a print request.
Therefore, it is desirable that the printer driver PD and the print data parser DP, which are conventionally installed in different apparatuses, be put together as a single function and be managed and operated in a single apparatus without dependence on the environment of the apparatus used by a user to make a print request.
Thus, the conventional image forming system has the problem of not being able to provide a manager (administrator)/operator and users of the image forming system with an image forming function with good usability to their satisfaction.